Pages

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

A jumble of entries, written in different hands, different languages, and different times. They tell of a rumour. A shadow. A killer.

The only interest that Oxford Professor Charles Meredith has in the diaries is as a record of Hungarian folklore ... until he comes face to face with a myth.

For Hannah Wilde, the diaries are a survival guide that taught her the three rules she lives by: verify everyone, trust no one, and if in any doubt, run.

But Hannah knows that if her daughter is ever going to be safe, she will have to stop running and face the terror that has hunted her family for five generations.

And nothing in the diaries can prepare her for that.

A novel of historical suspense that merges with the
present day, I really enjoyed the majority of this story.

The pacing at the beginning is phenomenal, catching
the reader’s attention from the very first line. The story develops slowly and
carefully throughout the book’s first half, which is why the second half, especially
the last few chapters is a disappointment. The last half feels very rushed
compared to the rest of the writing, making the climactic sections lose the
impact they might have had.

The characters are fine, though they are not as
developed as they could be. The author, understandably, spends most of the time
making sure the plot points are tightly connected, to the detriment of
characterization. Some of the characters, like Gabriel, Sebastien, and Eva,
deserved a bit more filling out to really connect to the rest of the story.

All in all, this book had a really great beginning
which deserved a better ending, but I would still recommend it to people who
like a good thriller with a touch of history within it.

P.S. Please don't forget to sign up for my brand new newsletter which is located right at the top of the page. It will be out once a week, featuring my exclusive stories, poetry, and even songs from my upcoming album! Don't miss out!

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
From The Adventures of Arthur Conan Doyle by Russell Miller

"His aquiline profile, with deerstalker and pipe, is instantly recognizable, even in countries where people have the greatest difficulty pronouncing his name. It is picked out in ceramic tiles on the walls of Baker Street Underground station in London."

(Can you guess who he's talking about?}

P.S. Please don't forget to sign up for my brand new newsletter which is located right at the top of the page. It will be out once a week, featuring my exclusive stories, poetry, and even songs from my upcoming album! Don't miss out!

Monday, January 27, 2014

Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…• Describe one of your reading habits.• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).• What book are you currently desperate to get your hands on? Tell us about it! • Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!• Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!?

Anyone who knows me knows that I am fanatic, and I mean that in the strongest way possible, of Sherlock Holmes stories. I started reading them when I was nine and they've stayed with me since then. I reread them every few years and I love them more each time. All of this to say that I started reading The Adventures of Arthur Conan Doyle by Russell Miller, a biography of Sherlock Holmes' fabulous author. So far, it is wonderful biography, though I tend to be biased with anything related to Conan Doyle.

P.S. Please don't forget to sign up for my brand new newsletter which is located right at the top of the page. It will be out once a week, featuring my exclusive stories, poetry, and even songs from my upcoming album! Don't miss out!

P.S. Please don't forget to sign up for my brand new newsletter which is located right at the top of the page. It will be out once a week, featuring my exclusive stories, poetry, and even songs from my upcoming album! Don't miss out!

To celebrate the first year anniversary of Evernight Teen, which has worked so hard to get my best friend's book published, I am hosting a spotlight on her book and helping spread the word about this publishing company.

This is an excerpt from The Tearings by V.C Repetto, published by Evernight Teen:

1

The
guy sitting at the next table coughed. It was an ugly, wet sound that made me
look up from the exam sheet in front of me.

Fabulous.
Last thing I needed was to get sick before the swim match.

He
sniffed and wiped his nose with his stiff, already less-than-fresh sleeve, then
lowered his hand back to his pencil and paper. Too bad for the person who’d
have to pick that particular test sheet up.

Okay,
back to the nonsense that would decide if I passed sophomore year or if I had
to have “loser” tattooed to my forehead.

Sighing,
I looked at the word problem. It was a geometry question, one of those that
made no real sense except in the wonky world of math and I’d already read it
through at least three times. It still sounded like gibberish.

I
glanced up at the rest of the sophomores, all bent over their own papers. Even
Lisa, a row ahead of me, looked like she was trying to disarm an atomic bomb.

Standardized
tests on a Friday morning, when all anyone could think of was being free to
drool on our pillows until Saturday afternoon, at the earliest, was an
interesting form of torture.

I
glanced down my Scantron. I hadn’t bubbled in a B for a while.

Ms.
Cadiz’s voice rang in my head, admonishing about the horrors of guessing, about
the complicated fractions of point subtractions. Whatever. If I left it blank,
I might forget and bubble everything wrong.

Without
another thought, I shadowed in B and moved on to the next wordy nightmare.

“How
was it?”

I
grabbed my gym bag from my locker. “Evil. That’s how it was.”

“Yeah,
there were some questions I left blank,” Lisa said.

“I
just hope I passed. My mom will have a stroke if I don’t.” Slinging the bag
over my shoulder, I leaned against the cool locker door, feeling the aluminum
like a sheet of ice against my back.

“Well,
she did try to get you that tutor.”

“I
don’t think anything would have prepared me for some of those questions. I’m
pretty sure I got the test that was in Russian or something.”

She
smiled. “You can tell your mom that. I’m sure she’ll believe it.”

“No,
but I really was distracted. There was a guy coughing up a hairball next to
me.”

“Ew!”

“It’s
probably whatever is going around the school, the flu, or something, but I
don’t want to even think of getting sick.” I grabbed Lisa’s arm and started to
lead the two of us to the gym. There was a large crowd of students still
exiting the cafeteria where we’d had the exam, each one with varying levels of
fear sketched on their faces.

“You
can still swim if you’re sick.”

“Not
at a state championship. Mr. Grason will never let me even get on the bus.”

“You’re
so gross,” she muttered, following me into the sweet and tangy smell of the
school gym.

“If
I can’t go to the match, you can’t, either.”

Mom
was waiting at the kitchen table when I finally made it home enveloped in a
chlorinated cloud. It was so much the norm for me that I barely smelled it
anymore, but I knew it could curl unprepared noses.

There
were so many questions on her face and she was pulling on her shirt like she
did when she was about to leap out of her skin.

“It
was fine,” I said, before she exploded with anxiety.

“Do
you think you passed? No, I don’t know if I want to know. If you’re held up a
year, then you’ll have trouble getting scholarships and−”

“Mom,
chill. Geez, I love the faith you have in me.”

“Maya,
you and I both know math is not your forte.”

“Okay,
but it’s not like, kryptonite or something.”

Mom
sighed and stood. “I know I’m exaggerating, but I want you to do well.”

I
smiled. I really should have been used to this by now. After all, it’ll always
been just the two of us, a household of semi-insane females.

“There’s
eggplant lasagna in the oven; it’ll be ready in a few minutes.”

“Yum.
It’s completely vegetarian?”

“Yes,
Maya. I was really tempted to get the beef one, though, and pass it off as
meat-free.”

“Mom!”

“I
didn’t. This one is the nice, boring vegetable variety.”

Putting
my back-pack and gym bag down, I grabbed two placemats and dropped them on the
kitchen table, a rickety, ancient thing that was small enough for us to have to
squeeze our glasses in between our plates. We’d tried eating at the dining
room, but it felt strange in there, with so much space around us we actually
lost the salt shaker once. Actually lost it in the tablecloth dunes.

Okay,
mom wasn’t the only one who had a penchant for exaggeration.

“How
was work?”

“Oh,
it was glorious. Norman was out sick so the office was so quiet! He really
should be sick more often.”

I
snorted. “As a social worker, aren’t you supposed to have, like, compassion for
your fellow human beings? You can’t just walk around wishing people sick.”

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Diagnosed with XP, a rare medical condition which makes him lethally sensitive to light, Tyler is a thirteen-year-old who desperately wants just one thing: to be normal. His mother Eve also wants just one thing: to protect her son. As Tyler begins roaming their cul-de-sac at night, cloaked in the safety of the darkness, he peers into the lives of the other families on the street-looking in on the things they most want hidden. Then, the young daughter of a neighbor suddenly vanishes, and Tyler may be the only one who can make sense of her disappearance…but what will happen when everyone's secrets are exposed to the light?

This novel surprised me. I didn’t expect it to have
its feet planted so firmly on literary ground since it is described as a
psychological thriller of sorts. It was a welcomed surprise to see that it, in
fact, had layers and layers of depth to excavate.

The character development is what makes this story
truly worth reading. All the characters change and grow in their individual
ways as the novel progresses, which is very gratifying to see after reading too
many books with flat characterizations. The plot, however, doesn’t drag one
bit. It is kept crisps and quite fast-paced for the depth of character study,
and I didn’t find myself bored a single moment.

The writing is straight-forward, so don’t expect to
see lots of flowery descriptions and the like. I think this is the main reason
why the story works so well. The narrative is dramatic enough that it doesn’t
really require any added embellishments.

If you are looking for a psychological novel that
really packs a punch and makes you ask yourself what you’d do, then this one is
a great choice.

P.S. Please don't forget to sign up for my brand new newsletter which is located right at the top of the page. It will be out once a week, featuring my exclusive stories, poetry, and even songs from my upcoming album! Don't miss out!

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

"It was ungracious, unbecoming, ungentlemanly. Rather than playing by the rules, you used the advantage of your position to get what you wanted."

P.S. Please don't forget to sign up for my brand new newsletter which is located right at the top of the page. It will be out once a week, featuring my exclusive stories, poetry, and even songs from my upcoming album! Don't miss out!

Monday, January 20, 2014

Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…• Describe one of your reading habits.• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).• What book are you currently desperate to get your hands on? Tell us about it! • Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!• Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!?

I am reading The String Diaries by Stephen Lloyd Jones. It's a really fascinating supernatural story that has a modern gothic feel to it that I am really enjoying. It deals with a kind of demon curse that follows a family throughout different generations. Definitely one that I would recommend for any lovers of the supernatural genre who like their stories a bit on the dark side.

P.S. Please don't forget to sign up for my brand new newsletter which is located right at the top of the page. It will be out once a week, featuring my exclusive stories, poetry, and even songs from my upcoming album! Don't miss out!

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

"It was only when Hannah Wilde reached the farmhouse shortly after midnight that she discovered how much blood her husband had lost."

pg. 1

P.S. Please don't forget to sign up for my brand new newsletter which is located right at the top of the page. It will be out once a week, featuring my exclusive stories, poetry, and even songs from my upcoming album! Don't miss out!

Monday, January 13, 2014

Five years in the making, Londoners is a fresh and compulsively readable view of one of the world's most fascinating cities—a vibrant narrative portrait of the London of our own time, featuring unforgettable stories told by the real people who make the city hum.

Acclaimed writer and editor Craig Taylor has spent years traversing every corner of the city, getting to know the most interesting Londoners, including the voice of the London Underground, a West End rickshaw driver, an East End nightclub doorperson, a mounted soldier of the Queen's Life Guard at Buckingham Palace, and a couple who fell in love at the Tower of London—and now live there. With candor and humor, this diverse cast—rich and poor, old and young, native and immigrant, men and women (and even a Sarah who used to be a George)—shares indelible tales that capture the city as never before.

Together, these voices paint a vivid, epic, and wholly original portrait of twenty-first-century London in all its breadth, from Notting Hill to Brixton, from Piccadilly Circus to Canary Wharf, from an airliner flying into London Heathrow Airport to Big Ben and Tower Bridge, and down to the deepest tunnels of the London Underground. Londoners is the autobiography of one of the world's greatest cities.

This was a wonderfully enlightening look at London
and its people. For someone like me, who is planning a trip in the near future
to this city, this is a great way of getting a taste of the place beforehand.

I loved that we get to see a bit of every section in
London. From the high society, high tea, kind of people, to the funeral
directors and even homeless people, we get a real sense of what London means
for each of these people. What I found very interesting is the way the author
captured each of their voices, so that none of them sound quite the same. This
shows that he took the time to maintain their voices and personalities intact.

We get so much slang in the writing, especially
through some of the younger narratives, that we do get a good, real sense of
London and its people. I especially enjoyed learning about the Voice of the Underground,
who is the woman whom you hear at every subway station. There are so many
wonderful anecdotes, truthful and unique, that even the least positive of the
bunch still make you feel like London is an absolute-must-see.

P.S. Please don't forget to sign up for my brand new newsletter which is located right at the top of the page. It will be out once a week, featuring my exclusive stories, poetry, and even songs from my upcoming album! Don't miss out!

Friday, January 10, 2014

Resolutions: Put together your blogger resolution list for all of us to see!

Well, since my debut novel, The Rose Master, is coming out in June, I really want to get all my followers involved in the release, providing some with review copies and all of that. I also would like to grow my mailing list, for this same reason (hint hint).
By the way, you can check out my author page here.

P.S. Please don't forget to sign up for my brand new newsletter which is located right at the top of the page. It will be out once a week, featuring my exclusive stories, poetry, and even songs from my upcoming album! Don't miss out!

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

"It was his mother's reaction that was so mystifying. At first, while his father kissed them both and patted his son on the back, she said nothing, staring across the river as if the little reunion before her was not taking place."

P.S. Please don't forget to sign up for my brand new newsletter which is located right at the top of the page. It will be out once a week, featuring my exclusive stories, poetry, and even songs from my upcoming album! Don't miss out!

Monday, January 6, 2014

Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…• Describe one of your reading habits.• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).• What book are you currently desperate to get your hands on? Tell us about it! • Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!• Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!?Since I am planning that trip to London, I've been reading up on lots of the history of the city and have started reading a great, fictionalized look at the entire history of London. From its beginning to now. It is fascinating, so far. It's called, of course, London by Edward Rutherfurd.P.S. Please don't forget to sign up for my brand new newsletter which is located right at the top of the page. It will be out once a week, featuring my exclusive stories, poetry, and even songs from my upcoming album! Don't miss out!

P.S. Please don't forget to sign up for my brand new newsletter which is located right at the top of the page. It will be out once a week, featuring my exclusive stories, poetry, and even songs from my upcoming album! Don't miss out!